1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a printing method.
2. Related Art
A printing apparatus configured to perform printing on a sheet-type flexible printing medium by an ink jet system is known (For example, see JP-A-2000-177111). The printing apparatus described in JP-A-2000-177111 includes a print head having a large number of nozzles (printing elements) configured to discharge ink droplets on a recording medium. The printing apparatus described above is configured such that when, for example, a discharge failure of a nozzle occurs due to clogging of the nozzle, printing is performed without using all the nozzles located between the nozzle having the discharge failure and an end of a print head on the side closer to the nozzle having the discharge failure. However, in this case, a state in which many usable nozzles are not used may occur, and depending on the number of the usable nozzles which are not used, a speed of a printing process may be lowered.